


Dog Day Afternoon

by IReadAndWriteSometimes



Category: Major Crimes (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-25
Updated: 2020-04-25
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:22:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23839813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IReadAndWriteSometimes/pseuds/IReadAndWriteSometimes
Summary: A hot day in LA puts our favorite couple in a bad mood.
Relationships: Andy Flynn/Sharon Raydor
Comments: 5
Kudos: 19





	Dog Day Afternoon

Cranky was a word Andy could easily apply to a lot of people in his life. Provenza most notably, Rusty probably, his ex-wife most definitely. But Sharon? No, cranky was not a word he would ever use to describe her. Or perhaps dare. 

Apprehensive maybe? Yes. Nervous? Sure. Restless? Definitely. But cranky? Hell no. 

Only… And he winced at the mere thought...

She _was_ cranky.

And he couldn’t really blame her.

It was hot as hell. Just glance-at-the-sun-and-melt-on-the-spot kind of hot. Even in the shade, the air was scorching, suffocating. It stood still, without even the faintest breeze to offer relief. In an above average hot week, today the heat index had reached its peak.

It was just _so_ damn hot, and he was cranky, too, because his day was not going well.

As luck would have it, on the hottest day in the city in the last 30 years, their AC gave out. Any other day, it would be no biggie. He’d get someone to fix it and voila, problem solved. But do it today, and the earliest someone could come to fix it would be next week. Not in a couple of hours, not tomorrow, not even the day after tomorrow, but in seven goddamn days!

He might have yelled at Sharon when he told her, not that it was her fault, she just happened to be a convenient target for his annoyance.

The glare he was subsequently rewarded with burned almost as much as the LA sun.

So now he was sitting in the living room, their window drapes enveloping the room in semi-darkness, in front of the TV, miserable, sweaty, bored, alone and… irritated.

Because frankly, she’d been snippy with him all day, and did he glare her to death? Did he retreat to their bedroom, hiding and fuming?

He sighed and flopped his head on the backrest of the couch. Even mad at her, he still couldn’t really blame her for any of it.

All kinds of warnings about going out and about in this scorching weather had been issued, and being in the ‘at high risk’ part of the population due to their various heart issues, they had been pretty much cooped up in the house for days now. Evenings offered the slightest of relief, but then the ground itself seemed to radiate heat, and that was nearly as bad as the sun.

Today, Sharon seemed to be faring worse than most days. She had done laundry, and when he offered to help, she initially agreed, but when all of a sudden she found his folding technique lacking, she had unceremoniously kicked him off the task. 

“If you can’t do it properly,” she had said, taking a T-Shirt out of his ‘done’ pile and refolding it the way she preferred, which, in his humble opinion, was precisely the same way he did, “how about you don’t do it at all?”

When they decided to make lunch together, and he accidentally dropped and shattered a plate, she had let out such a long, exasperated sigh, that he had fled the kitchen before she could even think to kick him out herself. After lunch then, he didn’t even bother offering to clear the table, but smartly got out of her way, lest he did something else to set her off.

Still, he understood. At some point your day just sucks, nothing can please you, no matter what you do, and it was a wonder really that it had taken her this long to reach that point.

So, in an attempt to snap her out of that funk a little, he had optimistically suggested they go out, somewhere indoors with air conditioning. Simply to get out of the house. Restaurant, shopping mall, museum. Anything. Sharon had refused it all. Not even gently, with her usual gratitude at his sweet thought, but brutally, flat out, she had said, “No.”

At that point, he had given up, hoping the next day would be better, because surely this one couldn't get any worse. But when half an hour later, he then heard a desperate, "Oh, no, no, no," from her while he was coming back from the bathroom, and found her furiously tapping and shaking the AC remote, he was proven terribly wrong.

Five disappointing phone calls later, Sharon had wordlessly stalked off to their bedroom, barricading the door, and he hadn't seen nor heard from her since. The soft thud with which she closed the door made him decide that cranky wasn’t a word he would use to describe her after all.

Whatever she was, it was much much worse than merely cranky. Although maybe that was his own crankiness talking.

With the back of his hand he wiped off the sweat on his brow, and groaned. If only they’d gotten that house with the pool. They could have used this heat to their heart's content and nothing else would have mattered.

“Goddammit!” he muttered under his breath. Looking around the room, he stood, a decision reached, and made his way through the house to the garage. 

There he located his tool box, and as he carried it back into the house whipped his phone out to google, ‘fixes for central air conditioning.’

For a good half hour he then sat at the kitchen table, reading through tips, even quickly going over some instructional videos, before he finally got up again to give some of those suggestions a go.

He almost changed his mind when he got out to locate the central unit. He thought it was even hotter than an hour ago. Nonetheless, he braced himself, and courageously got to work.

“Ouch!” he yelped some time later, sucking in his thumb between his lips, glaring at the machine he had disassembled. “Go to hell, you damn piece of junk!” he added, smacking the thing with his open palm, and in turn sending another jolt of pain through the limb. “Ah, for fu-”  
“Andy?”

He whirled around so fast he could hear several loud pops coming from his spine in the process.

“What are you doing?”

He just stared at her for a moment. Cranky or not, she was going to give him hell for this, he was sure of it. Didn’t matter if she had a good reason to, or not.

Trying to compose himself in light of the outburst she just witnessed, he awkwardly rubbed the back of his head, accidentally hitting himself with the butt of the screwdriver he was holding. As the pain registered, his suppressed ire quickly resurfaced, and he cursed loudly, either at himself, the screwdriver, or perhaps even at Sharon, he couldn’t tell, nor did he really care in the moment. “I figured,” he finally started, his voice strained and rough as he struggled not to start yelling again, “if the thing’s busted already, what’s the worst that can happen if I try to fix it myself?” 

Sharon just looked at him, her face inscrutable, and he suddenly found himself holding his breath. If she was angry with him before, he thought, looking around at the mess he had managed to make of their backyard, she might just file for divorce after this stunt. 

Then to his absolute horror, she burst out laughing. Not just simple laughter either, but snort filled, almost hiccuping laughter. 

Recovering, he got on board with what he decided was a good, if insulting reaction. “Now, wait a minute,” he waved his hands at her and managed to get her attention even though he could tell she was on the verge of laughing again, “I just gotta tighten this,” he turned around and tightened a screw, “pop this back into place,” he pushed at what resembled a tiny radiator with small pipes sticking out of it, “and it should start up again.” He took a brush that was next to his knee, worked it over the piece one more time, then reached for the cable and plugged the machine in with a fairly confident look on his face.

When absolutely nothing happened, Sharon promptly dissolved into snort infested laughter.

He didn’t find it amusing himself though. In a couple of jerked movements he got up to his feet, profusely ignoring the protests of his old bones, and glared at her, his temper flaring within an instant. “You know what? Laugh it up all you want, sweetheart!” He threw the screwdriver into his toolbox, not even registering it bouncing out of it and clattering down to the ground as he refocused on Sharon. “But I’m miserable in this goddamn heat, too, and I’m at least trying to do something about it instead of making you feel like shit! And you know what else? I’ve been sweating my ass off here for no other reason than to try to cheer your cranky ass up by fixing this piece of crap, while you brooded in the bedroom. And what do you do? You laugh at me. Well, ain’t that just great. Thank you so much. I feel so appreciated.” With that last sarcastic remark, he walked past her, only barely keeping himself in check enough to not intentionally bump his shoulder into her.

Before he was out of her reach though, her hand caught the bottom of his shirt, and she almost panicky said, “Andy, wait!”

“What?” he whirled around on her, a thunderous expression on his face.

She waited a moment, the way she always did when he got worked up like this, and when he saw the rather dumbstruck, and what was more a rather guilty expression on her face, he found himself taking a deep breath then slumping his shoulders as he exhaled.

Noting the change in him, she reached for his hand, and ran her finger over his thumb. It wasn’t until she worriedly said, “You’re bleeding,” that he noticed he had not just pinched, but cut the digit.

Still too worked up, despite his earlier efforts, he jerked his hand free of hers, and growled, “Who cares?”

“ _I_ do,” she said, with more than a little force in the words. Then she grabbed his hand, this time not allowing him to pull it back, and led him back into the house until they reached the kitchen.

Brooding in silence, he just let her run his hand under the tap water and as she dug through a drawer to find a bandaid, she finally spoke again. “It wasn’t my intention to laugh at you.” He looked at her with dubious eyes, but she ignored him. “In fact, I came out to apologize.”

Surprised, his eyebrows shot up. “Oh.”

“Yes, oh,” she mumbled, running her thumbs over his now bandaged one, then releasing his hand. “I’ve taken my sour mood out on you all day, and for that I’m sorry.”

“Sharon-”

“But,” she cut him off, giving him one of those ‘don’t interrupt me looks’ over the top of her glasses, “so have you, and I don’t mean just now.”

He deflated completely now, and sighed. “I know, I’m sorry. I was an ass.” He looked around, the guilt for his earlier outburst swelling up in him, and added, “I didn’t mean-”

“Yes, you did,” she interrupted, this time gently, reaching for his hand again. “But you’re forgiven.” After a pause, she added, “Unless there’s more you need to get out of your system?”

He chuckled self deprecatingly, then raised his free hand in surrender. “No, no, I’m good.”

She chuckled, too, then leaned over to give him a quick kiss. “How about we clean up this mess of yours then?”

He shook his head vehemently. “No, I just had to clean the evaporator, maybe I missed a-” He abruptly shut up when he caught the skeptical look she was giving him. “Or,” he gave up, “maybe I really don’t have a clue what I was doing.”

“Maybe,” she repeated, and when he caught the shadow of amusement on her face, he couldn’t help but laugh.

“Can we just forget about this,” he stood, “clean it up and go die of this heatstroke in peace?”

She laughed. “Sounds like a plan.”

When they were done, his tools put away, and the air conditioning unit reassembled into its seemingly undefective state, Sharon made them some iced drinks and led them to the living room.

She took a spot on the couch, but instead of joining her, Andy pulled at his shirt, ungluing it from his sweaty skin and said, “I should probably take a shower first.”

“Or you could just take it off?” she offered, looking at him, amused.

He narrowed his eyes at her. “Or you could join me for that shower?”

“And break a hip?” she countered, hiding a grin behind her glass.

“And have the time of your life,” he corrected smugly.

She burst out laughing.

He clutched at his chest. “You wound me.”

Even as she chuckled, she reached for his hand, and pulled him to her. “Oh, would you just get over here?”

For the briefest of moments, he considered taking that shower first, because with her track record today, he was really in no mood for another scolding, this time over sweat stains on her precious couch. She seemed to be more relaxed though, and humor was definitely a good sign, too, so he finally did take a seat next to her, and decided to give voice to his musings. “You’re in a better mood, I see.”

She leaned a shoulder into the couch, facing him. “I took some time to cool off.” 

He chuckled. “You sure about that?” he asked, running a finger across her damp forehead and pointing it out to her.

She laughed, then added as an afterthought, “No pun intended.”

He grinned.

“I really am sorry for today. Everything,” she waved a hand through the air, “just kept on piling on all day long, and then that stupid AC and-”

“I know,” he caught her fidgeting hand, prompting her to scoot closer to him, “bad day.”

“Something like that,” she agreed.

“Good you have a punching bag like me,” he suddenly said, grinning again.

She eyed him suspiciously. “One that likes to punch back,” she pointed out.

He didn’t even bother with another apology. It wasn’t the first time they’d taken their foul moods out on each other, and with any luck it won’t be their last. Instead, he said, "You forget how big of an ass I can be when I set my mind to it."

She laughed, not disagreeing. “Aren’t we a pair, huh?”

“The best,” he decided, stealing a quick kiss from her.

Still smiling, she leaned her head against his shoulder, and changed the topic, her tone conversational. “So how exactly did you picture this ‘dying of a heat stroke’ plan?”

“About that,” he started, waiting until she looked up at him, and when she did, he leaned down and kissed her. When he had her sufficiently breathless, he asked, just as conversationally, “How about a change of plans?”

“Depends on the plan,” she replied, distracted with plans of her own as she inched closer to kiss him again.

Avoiding her lips, Andy grinned. “It’s a compromise really.” 

The look she shot him told him she was quite unimpressed by this game he was playing, but she played along anyway, her final response leaving her lips in a carefully measured, yet intrigued tone. “Really?” 

He continued grinning, then wagged his eyebrows at her. “A cool bath.”

She didn’t need to be asked twice. Even as she said, “Oh, I like that,” she was on her feet, pulling him up to his, to lead the way.

Once in their bathroom, undressing each other became an entirely too hot affair; slow, deliberate and interrupted by scorching kisses, so when they finally entered the bathtub, it wasn’t just the LA heat they slowly cooled down from. With a content sigh, Sharon relaxed against Andy’s chest, and he chuckled as he peppered her shoulder with kisses. Rightfully so, he sounded rather pleased with himself, when he asked, “Enjoying yourself?”

“Immensely,” she agreed, but in a playful attempt to curb his smug attitude, she pinched an arm he had wrapped around her.

He merely laughed though, even pulled her more snugly against him, before leaning fully back, nestling them both safely against the bathtub.

He closed his eyes for a moment, soaking up the relief from the heat provided by the water, and simply basked in the feel of the woman in his arms. The goosebumps that erupted all over his skin had little to do with the cooling water, but rather everything with the way she started running her fingers up and down his forearms. He relaxed even more, and smiled to himself when in a similar response, she shivered, as he grazed a thumb across the side of her breast. 

Inviting himself to more, he placed one sensuous kiss to the back of her neck, then another off to the side, then one more to her shoulder. When he drew a quiet moan out of her, he continued showering her skin with kisses, but just as he was about to give his hands free roam of the rest of her body, too, she suddenly stiffened and stilled his hands, causing him to pause. 

Sitting up, he rested his chin against her shoulder and inclined his head gently to look at her. Surprised, but not entirely too worried when he saw the amusement in her eyes, he asked, “What?” 

“Did you really call my ass _cranky_?”

For a moment his heart dropped and he worried that he had ruined her improved mood. There was an ominous ring to the question, indicating that he had better come up with a very good answer if he wished to stay in this bathtub with her, but then he realized she was fighting a smile, clearly teasing him. Not one to pass up an opportunity to make up for his little slip though, he put on his most disarming smile in return, dropped an open palm to the object of her question, and quickly apologized.

Profusely.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed it.
> 
> Big shoutout to escapewithstories for being my beta on this, thank you. :)


End file.
